[jstarr976]

My first real car model. Ive made a few other vehicles but this is the first actual car. I understand it is not perfect but Ive learned a lot doing it. Either way... comments and crits are more than welcome. Im hesitant to show any wip renders because I really dont seem to have a grasp on how to make car paint look realistic... any help in that department would be awesome. Thanks all...

[jstarr976]

another view

[jstarr976]

wire

[jstarr976]

this is a render I did a little earlier in the modeling before I refined the hood and added some of the details. The paint looks pretty cool but doesnt look at all photorealistic. This is as close as I could seem to get using the settings in surface editor. not sure what Im doing wrong. I do like the headlights though. They have spec and bump maps on the glass that refract the reflections on the shiny surface inside the light. Also... the chrome isnt doing it for me either. What do you guys think... thanks for any responses good or bad. later.

[jstarr976]

a little better for the paint... still need help

[jstarr976]

same scene rendered with correct environment reflections this time... Above render everything was reflecting the headlight glass specular map. Oops. I guess I need to figure out how to get my hands on an hdr image for reflecting... I dont know how to get one or make one. Any tips so far are welcome. Thanks

[Mark]

Look in your Lightwave 'images' folder. There should be four HDR images supplied in there.

You can also take a look at Paul Debevec's site. There's a whole bunch of HDR stuff buried in there:
http://www.debevec.org/

[jstarr976]

thanks... any ideas on how to use the hdr images to make a more realistic rendering?? Im foggy on this idea... I am going to try to find a tut... any tips would be useful. Thanks. Merry Christmas everyone.

[Ribbons]

Thats a nice piece of work , how did you find modeling those curves on the body and do you have a reference model or just
images.

Cheers Alan.

[jstarr976]

Thanks Ribbons... I chose this car not only because its badass but because I knew that it would be a challenge. All I could find for reference was a few garbage blueprints on the internet that had words all over them and they were extremely low rez. They served only to give me the basic size and location of the components. Most of the modeling was done by looking at reference pictures I got on the internet. Im still working on it a little at a time when I have a chance... been busy during Christmas. Heres a wheel Im working on now.

[Ribbons]

jstarr976,
Are those the original pipes that the cobra had or it could be
I,m confusing them with the english AC model. Could be I,m
seeing car parts flash before my eyes to much modeling.
Are you going for a plain still shot of the car or a composite .

Cheers Alan.

[jstarr976]

Not sure about the pipes... Im just doing this from a few photos I saw on the internet... I liked those pipes so I thought Id make them. They make it look tough. No real plans for the car, just doing it to play around and keep in practice. This is the 1st real car model Ive ever done, so Im just trying to get better. Heres a few clay renders. Let me know what you think. Still got a way to go on the modeling. Thanks.

[jstarr976]

another...

[jstarr976]

uugh... here it is

[jstarr976]

Whats the deal..?? I used a hdr image and wrapped it around a dome and turned up the luminosity to 100 %. used radiosity at 8x16. Everything is set up according to a tut I found and it doesnt look good at all... This is the third time Ive tried to render using hdr images for lighting... nothing seems to work. I dont have ray trace reflections on however... is it nessesary? Please PLEASE help me. I want this to work so bad. Thanks.